Tallahassee, FL 12/15/11 (StreetBeat) – Discover Financial Services (NYSE: DFS) posted a higher quarterly profit, helped by increased credit card spending by customers and raised its quarterly dividend.For the quarter ended Nov. 30, the credit card lender and payment processing network, earned $513 million, or 95 cents a share, compared with $350 million, or 64 cents a share, a year ago.
Consumer loan demand and the purchase of private student loans in the fourth quarter boosted total loans outstanding to $57.3 billion.
Like American Express Co, Discover lends directly to consumers and also competes with Visa Inc and MasterCard Inc to process transactions for banks.
Transaction volume for payment services segment grew 7 percent to $43.3 billion in the quarter. The company also raised it quarterly dividend 67 percent to 10 cents a share.
"Our fourth quarter results, together with our already strong capital levels, allowed us to increase our dividend and execute on our share repurchase program," Chief Executive David Nelms said in a statement.
Shares of the Riverwoods, Illinois-based company were up 1 percent to $24.02 before the bell. They closed at $23.82 on Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange.
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